Kenelm Chillingly — Complete eBook

CHAPTER XII.

KENELM spoke no more to his new friend in the hayfields; but when the day’s work was over he looked round for the farmer to make an excuse for not immediately joining the family supper.  However, he did not see either Mr. Saunderson or his son.  Both were busied in the stackyard.  Well pleased to escape excuse and the questions it might provoke, Kenelm therefore put on the coat he had laid aside and joined Jessie, who had waited for him at the gate.  They entered the lane side by side, following the stream of villagers who were slowly wending their homeward way.  It was a primitive English village, not adorned on the one hand with fancy or model cottages, nor on the other hand indicating penury and squalor.  The church rose before them gray and Gothic, backed by the red clouds in which the sun had set, and bordered by the glebe-land of the half-seen parsonage.  Then came the village green, with a pretty schoolhouse; and to this succeeded a long street of scattered whitewashed cottages, in the midst of their own little gardens.

As they walked the moon rose in full splendour, silvering the road before them.

“Who is the Squire here?” asked Kenelm.  “I should guess him to be a good sort of man, and well off.”

“Yes, Squire Travers; he is a great gentleman, and they say very rich.  But his place is a good way from this village.  You can see it if you stay, for he gives a harvest-home supper on Saturday, and Mr. Saunderson and all his tenants are going.  It is a beautiful park, and Miss Travers is a sight to look at.  Oh, she is lovely!” continued Jessie, with an unaffected burst of admiration; for women are more sensible of the charm of each other’s beauty than men give them credit for.

“As pretty as yourself?”

“Oh, pretty is not the word.  She is a thousand times handsomer!”

“Humph!” said Kenelm, incredulously.

There was a pause, broken by a quick sigh from Jessie.

“What are you sighing for?—­tell me.”

“I was thinking that a very little can make folks happy, but that somehow or other that very little is as hard to get as if one set one’s heart on a great deal.”

“That’s very wisely said.  Everybody covets a little something for which, perhaps, nobody else would give a straw.  But what’s the very little thing for which you are sighing?”

“Mrs. Bawtrey wants to sell that shop of hers.  She is getting old, and has had fits; and she can get nobody to buy; and if Will had that shop and I could keep it,—­but ’tis no use thinking of that.”

“What shop do you mean?”

“There!”

“Where?  I see no shop.”

“But it is the shop of the village,—­the only one,—­where the post-office is.”

“Ah!  I see something at the windows like a red cloak.  What do they sell?”

“Everything,—­tea and sugar and candles and shawls and gowns and cloaks and mouse-traps and letter-paper; and Mrs. Bawtrey buys poor Will’s baskets, and sells them for a good deal more than she pays.”